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BULLETIN 

OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 



1916: No. 2 



JANUARY 5 



1916 



SCHOOLHOUSE MEETING 

Conveniences and Labor Saving Devices 
for the Farm Home 



Prepared by 

MEMBERS OF THE 

DEPARTMENT OF EXTENSION 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 




Published by the University six times a month and entered as 

second-class matter at the postoffice at 

AUSTIN, TEXAS 

Monograph 



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The benefits of education and ol 
useful knowledge, generally diffused 
through a community, are essential 
to the preservation of a free gov- 
ernment. 

Sam Houston. 



Cultivated mind is the guardian 
genius of democracy. ... It is the 
only dictator that freemen acknowl- 
edge and the only security that free- 
men desire. 

Mirabeau B. Lamar. 



D^ of De 
JUN 24 3818 



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02 



Fellow Teacher and Fellow Citizens: 

The progressive farmer no longer cuts his grain with a cradle 
or does all his cultivating with hoes and old-fashioned plows; 
he has better and more efficient implements for his work. The 
new farm machinery lightens his labor and increases his crop. 
How about the farmer's wife? Does she have her labor light- 
ened? Are her important duties of housekeeper and mother 
made easier, and is her efficiency increased by improved house- 
hold equipment? 

Not long ago the Smith-Lever Bill was passed by Congress, 
appropriating funds for carrying on extension work in Agri- 
culture, including the work in the farnl home. In order to 
learn how to wisely spend that part of the money which was 
to be used for the farm home, the United States Department 
of Agriculture sent 55,000 letters to representative farm homes 
of the United States asking for suggestions from farm women 
as to their greatest needs and the best methods of supplymg 
them. Only 2,241 answers were received. Among the sugges- 
tions given in these answers were such as these: "provide for 
farm women better opportunities for domestic science educa- 
tion," "publish more literature and bulletins on home sanita- 
tion and health," "send demonstrators to teach right ways of 
preparing foods"; but most frequent of all was the suggestion, 
"show us some way to do our home work better and without 
such an unceasing round of back-breaking water-toting, washing, 
cooking and cleaning up from before day till after dark." 

Undoubtedly the farm home has not had its share of the 
money spent for improvements on the farm. Improvements in 
the home are usually put off^ until a time when money will be 
abundant, but the days, montlis, and years drag by, and no 
such time ever comes. Frequently when the spare cash has 
come, it has been invested in additional land, which necessitated 
more help and increased still further the wife's burdens witn- 
out providing her with any of the conveniences that lessen her 
physical drudgery and give her some spare time to make her 
home life attractive and to train up her children properly. It 
is not only just, but good business ecenomy, that the housewife 



4 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

should have just as good modern equipment of labor saving de- 
vices for her work indoors as the farmer has for his work out- 
side, because upon the proper keeping of the home depend the 
health, strength and happiness of those who work in the fields. 
The good home means able-bodied, intelligent workers and well 
managed farms. Money spent in the home for increasing its 
convenience and efficiency is not a luxury but a well placed in- 
vestment. 

One of the chief causes of the apparent selfishness and in- 
considerateness of really good men in allowing their wives to 
wear out their lives hoisting and carrying water and working 
without modern conveniences in the homes is the fact that these 
men do not realize that this labor can be avoided or greatly re- 
duced by the wise expenditure of a comparatively small sum of 
money. Very few men or women know what conveniences and 
labor saving devices are possible at small expense in the farm 
home. The purpose of this discussion is to show what some of 
these possibilities are and how the conveniences can be secured 
at the least cost. This discussion is important not only for 
every farm woman, but for every farmer who loves his wife and 
values her own and his own health, efficiency and happiness. 
The vast majority of farm women are run down and not well 
a good part of their lives. This is unnecessary. Let us learn 
how to prevent it. 

A. Caswtell Ellis, 

Acting Director, Department of Extension, 

The University of Texas. 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 



Conveniences and Labor Saving Devices 
for the Farm Home 

QUESTIONS 

1. Study the diagram shown of a model arrangement of the 
equipment in a kitchen with the view of saving steps or saving 
labor in the work there, and compare the steps required to cook 
a meal in this properly arranged kitchen with the steps re- 
quired in your kitchen as at present arranged. What principles 
of arrangement should be followed in locating the equipment in 
a kitchen? Make the plan for a better arrangement of the 
equipment in your kitchen to save labor there. (In doing this 
take each actual operation, such as making and cooking biscuit, 
and count the steps required in each kitchen to get the ma- 
terials out, mix them, put them in the stove, and carry to the 
table.) 

2. Figure out the number of miles you walk and the number 
of pounds you lift in carrying water each week. How can run- 
ning water most easily be put into a country home? What is 
the cost of each of the less expensive ways of providing run- 
ning water? What provision should be made for the removal 
of this water? 

3. What is the necessity of an oil stove in an economically 
equipped country kitchen? Discuss advantages and disadvant- 
ages of the particular kind you own. 

4. How has the fireless cooker been a benefit as a labor saving 
device in your home? Give ways of making one at home, and 
sugestions for its use. 

5. What provisions can be made in the kitchen that will re- 
duce the hard scrubbing, and continual standing required? 

6. What economy and benefit is there in having the house 
well screened and the fly and mosquito excluded? 

7. In what ways is the bathroom, or some definite place for 
the bathing equipment, essential to the convenient home? Dis- 



6 . Bulletin of the University of Texas 

cuss ways of installing a cheap bathroom. Study diagram sent 
with this lesson. 

8. In what ways does an inconvenient toilet injure health? 
How could a running water toilet be put into your home? If 
this is not possible, how is a sanitary dry toilet made ? 

9. What other things should be considered in a discussion of 
a convenient home? 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 



ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 



No. 1. Little attention has been given in the home to the 
possibility of reducing the labor connected with household duties. 
The equipment in many of our kitchens stands just where it did 
thirty years ago, and, because of poor arrangement, makes 
needless daily demands on the housekeeper's time. It has been 
figured out for one kitchen just how many miles during the 
year the housekeeper must w^alk to prepare a breakfast of 
fruit, cereal, soft-cooked eggs, toast, and coffee. According to 
the figures, she would walk about fourteen miles. The kitchen 
has been re-arranged, and the equipment so placed as to re- 
duce the amount of walking required to only seven miles — just 
half. 

(Draw the two diagrams below on the board before the meet- 
ing opens. Also get a similar plan of some local kitchen drawn 
on the board and show how a better arrangement can lessen the 
labor in doing the kitchen work.) 






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Figure No. 1 shows a poorly arranged kitchen. The station- 
ary furnishings in this kitchen, which are essential to doing the 
daily tasks, are not conveniently grouped. The stove, sink, and 
work table should be placed near each other. The kitchen in 



8 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



Figure No. 2 indicates a rearrangement to meet this require- 
ment. Also the table has been built into a kitchen cabinet. (For 
Figures 1 and 2 we are indebted to Circular No. 8 of the Exten- 
sion Department of the University of Virginia.) 

The kitchen cabinet is essential, in order that the staple sup- 
plies used daily in the preparation of food, and the utensils 
necessary for this preparation be grouped together. A very in- 
expensive and convenient cabinet can be made from any kitchen 
table with shelves or cupboard placed above. The accompanying 
diagrams, figures 3 and 4, show front and side view of such a 
cabinet. 



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Fig, 3. — Home made kitchen cabinet, front view. 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 9 




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Fig. 4. — Home made kitchen cabinet, side view. 

In this cabinet, the flour and sugar can be kept in 
large lard buckets or stone crocks on the sliding shelf 
at the left under the table. The small equipment, such 
as egg beater, strainer, etc., can be placed in the drawer or hung 
from the bottom of the shelf at the back of the table. Also, the 
small saucepans and skillet used daily can be hung at the back 
of the cabinet. Tight, small containers for tea, coffee, rice, 
baking powder, etc., can be kept on the open shelves. Package 



10 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

foods, bowls, pans, etc., eon be kept in the upper closet. The 
knives can be kept in the knife-cleat or the drawer. 

Such a cabinet can easily be made in the home by any man 
handy with tools at a small cost. It greatly reduces the labor 
in the preparation of the every day meals. 

No. 2. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest needs in the farm 
home is running water. The government has recently pub- 
lished figures which show that many housewives travel from 
one to two miles a day just to bring in water. The government 
reports also state that the average farm woman who has no 
running water in her kitchen lifts during the day in bringing 
in the water, filling the teakettle, removing the water, and so 
forth, from 700 to 2,000 pounds of water a day. Is it any won- 
der that the housewives give out? 

Every kitchen should have, at least, a sink and drain; and, 
if possible, running water. The water can be supplied from 
a small hand pump. The sink need not be an expensive one, 
but should be of material which does not absorb grease. The 
sink should have an iron drain pipe leading from it, through 
w^hich the water can be carried away. The drain pipe should be 
arranged to empty its contents into a set of drain tiles laid 
with open joints near the surface of the ground; or be so ar- 
ranged that the water can be discharged at different times in 
distinctly different places to prevent excess of water in any one 
spot. In any system the water must not be allowed to gather in 
pools about the drain pipe so as to breed mosquitoes. This is 
not an expensive outfit. See figure 5. The estimated cost is as 
follows : 

Pump — $2.00 up, depending on quality and depth of well. 

Sink— $3.25 up. 

Pipe and tile — $2.00 to $5.00, depending on distance from 
sink. 

Labor of installing — Nothing. (Done at home.) 

The running water for the sink may be supplied from an 
elevated tank, which is filled by a windmill or gasoline en- 
gine. A complete equipment including tank, engine, pump, fit- 
tings, etc., can be purchased for $126.00. This is a much more 
efficient system. The same engine may be used also for sawing 
wood, running the separater or small feed mill, and thus be of 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 

(See 



11 



service both to the farm and home. (See "Low Cost Farm 
Waterworks" in "Country Gentleman," July 11, 1915. This 
will be sent free to anyone upon request to the University De- 
partment of Extension.) If the above plan is not possible, a 
cistern or large barrel coulcl be elevated outside the kitchen 
with a pipe leading from it to the kitchen sink. This tank or 
barrel should be kept filled by the men with a hand force pump 




IMPOGE^ KiTCHEf-lPurtP 



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Fig. 5. Simplest arrangement for having water supply in kitchen. 

or by some mechanical power. Such a plan can be carried out 
at little expense besides a few feet of pipe and the labor of 
cutting the poles and building the frame to hold the barrel. 
Some system of running water should be provided in every 
farm home. 

No. 3. In a climate where hot weather lasts from six to eight 
months in the year, some form of gasoline or kerosene stove 
should be provided even in the country where wood is free and 
the kitchen is already equipped with a wood stove. A kerosene 
or gasoline stove is quickly regulated, does not heat the kitchen 
as a wood stove does, and relieves the housewife from the ner- 
vous exhaustion following a dav 's work in an overheated kitchen. 



12 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



These stoves are simple to manipulate and not expensive to run. 
The kerosene stove is perfectly safe, and the cost of fuel is less 
than the gasoline, as a gallon of kerosene at 12c and a gallon of 
gasoline at 20c furnish practically the same amount of heat. 

The tireless cooker is especially adapted for those foods which 
require a long slow cooking, such as cereals and tough meats. 

The following is a description of a homemade tireless cooker 
and a cut showing its construction. Suggestions for its use are 
found in Bulletin No. 347, "Meat, Its Preparation and Value 
in the Diet." This Bulletin may be obtained by writing to 
the Department of Extension, University of Texas, Austin, 
Texas. 




A 

B.— Pail 



Fig. 6. Home made fireless cooker; cost 45 cents. 
Candy bucket. . C. — Cushion. 



D. — Cover. 



This home-made fireless cooker was made at a cost of fifty- 
four cents. The materials necessary are: (1) One candy 
bucket; (2) one-quart granite pail; excelsior or hay; newspaper; 
heavy domestic or canvas ; asbestos mat ; hooks and screweyes. 

See that the bucket is perfectly clean and line the sides and 
bottom with several thicknesses of newspaper. In the bottom 
pack about four inches of excelsior or finely chopped hay as 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 13 

hard as it can be packed. Place the granite pail on top of this 
packing in the center of the bucket, and pack excelsior or hay 
all around it. When this is done, pull the pail out of the hay 
or excelsior carefully, leaving a hole the size of the bucket. 
Make a lining for the opening left, using the cloth for this pur- 
pose. At the bottom of the hole fit a piece of asbestos. This 
will help to keep the heat from escaping. Next make a cloth 
covered pad of newspaper and excelsior to fit the top of the 
bucket, cover the pail and hold in the heat. Make a wooden top 
also to .fit snugly over the bucket. This helps to prevent the cold 
air from entering the bucket and the heat from escaping. Ar- 
range screweyes on the lid and hooks on the bucket with which to 
hold the lid in place. 

No. 4. The floor should be covered with a material which is 
impervious to moisture and grease. A good grade of linoleum 
is the best. This will not require scrubbing, but mopping only. 
If it is not possible to obtain linoleum, the floor may be oiled. 
For this finish, the floor should first be thoroughly cleaned, 
then treated with boiled linseed oil and paraffin. The paraffin 
is melted in the oil, and the mixture applied, boiling hot, by 
means of a brush. It is then thoroughly rubbed in. At first it 
is best to put on two coats.* This finish is durable and inex- 
pensive, and makes the floor much better looking and easier 
to clean. The material for an ordinary kitchen floor would cost 
about a dollar. Anyone can put it on. The best proportions 
are 1 gallon of oil to 1 pound of paraffin. 

A stool in the kitchen of a height which will enable the worker 
to sit at the table, sink, or stove while working, and light enough 
in weight to be easily carried from one place to another, will 
save many an hour's continued standing and many a back-ache. 
This costs less than a dollar. 

No. 6. The fly and mosquito are disease carriers. The fly 
spreads typhoid fever, cholera infantum, dysentery, and many 
other filthy diseases. It lives mainly on fluid or semi-fluid foods, 
some of which are most dangerous to human health. Thus, flies 
may sip up the spittle of a person ill with consumption, in which 
are the germs by which that disease is spread from one person 
to another; they may feed on the waste water and night soil 
from sick room or privy, and so become fouled with the fluids 



14 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

containing the germs of typhoid fever, or dysentery. Then 
they visit our homes, crawl over the food which we are about 
to eat, leaving a trail of disease germs as they go, and infect 
the milk and the fluids we are about to drink. In this way, 
they often spread abroad the most serious diseases. 

The mosquitoes are responsible for malaria. All malarial fever 
is transmitted from man to man by mosquitoes, and by mosqui- 
toes alone. It is transmitted by the female of one particular 
variety of mosquito, the Anopheles. Others may be trouble- 
some, but are not known to transmit malaria. Mosquitoes be- 
come infected with malarial organisms by biting infected human 
beings. After passing through several stages in the stomach of 
the mosquito, this infection may be transmitted to other human 
beings bitten by one of these infected mosquitoes. 

From this it will be seen that flics and mosquitoes are a con- 
stant source of danger, and if they cannot be exterminated, they 
must be excluded from the home by screening the doors, win- 
dows, and chimneys. 

The most satisfactory and permanent method of screening 
is the framed wire screens, made to fit the different windows 
and doors. A less expensive method is to tack mosquito netting 
or mosquito wire over the outside of each of the window frames 
and add screen doors to each door. One East Texas family 
spent less than five dollars screening their home in this way, 
at the suggestion of the University Extension Department, and 
stated that throughout that entire year they did not have a 
doctor in the house ; whereas, for twenty-one years before not 
a month had passed, without having sickness in the family and 
doctor's bills. 

In screening, three things should be especially looked out 
for, or the work will be almost useless, as far as mosquitoes are 
concerned : 

1. Do not use a netting with less than 16 meshes to the inch. 
A great deal of 14 mesh wire is sold. This will not keep out 
small mosquitoes. 

2. Be sure that the frames fit the door and window openings 
so closely that space is not left for the entrance of mosquitoes. 

3. In the warm weather, be sure to stop up the chimney flues 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 



15 



or put a mosquito net frame over them, as mosquitoes will come 
down unused chimneys. 

More than half the sickness could be banished from the farms 
of Texas by properly screening the houses, protecting the water 
supply, and providing- sanitary toilets, all of which can be done 




Fig. 7. Simple bath arrangement for a rural home. 

at small expense. Sickness in the family is one of the heaviest 
burdens the housewife carries. 

No. 8. Personal cleanliness is not a fad or a fancy, but a 
sanitary necessity. The housewife that provides only a wash 
basin and towel back of the kitchen stove or on the back gallery, 



16 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

and expects her family to keep clean with this arrangement, is 
failing in her responsibility for safeguarding the health and 
efficiency of the family. Such an arrangement gives no privacy, 
no provision for an entire bath, and affords a splendid oppor- 
tunity for the spread of disease through the common towel and 
bowl. It is a neglected child who comes in from muscular exer- 
cises, covered with perspiration, and puts on clean out-side gar- 
ments without changing the heated underwear or bathing the 
dirt and waste products from the skin. There are many simple 
arrangements for the bath room in the farm home. An inex- 
pensive arrangement such as the following can easily be in- 
stalled: Take some small room of the house, fit it with a large 
galvanized wash tub, run in above the tub a water pipe or con- 
nect a small pump with the wall, and arrange if possible some 
convenience for the removal of the wash water. A hopper with 
a pipe running out under the ground could be used or a pipe 
leading to a ditch through which the water would run down 
to the garden or flower bed. For cold weather the room should 
be fitted with a kerosene stove for the purpose of heating both 
the water and the room. Such an outfit would cost ,as follows: 

Tub— $1.25. Pump— $1.95. 

Oil stove— $3.50. pipg— 10c per foot. 

This would add greatly to the comfort, cleanliness and health 
of the family. See diagram Figure No. 6. 

A more satisfactory bath room arrangement would be to pur- 
chase a regular bath-tub. The bath-tub is better shaped than 
the wash-tub, holds more water, and can be more easily emp- 
tied. Reliable firms advertise an entire bath-room outfit of 
white porcelain enamel consisting of a lavatory, tub and closet 
for thirty-eight dollars and a half. A good white enameled 
steel tub can be obtained for five dollars, and a white porce- 
lain enamel rolled rim tub for $11.50. 

One family, where there was no room available in the house 
for a bath-room, fitted up a crude shed not far away from the 
house. They laid a wooden floor, put in a big galvanized wash 
tub, a little kerosene stove, and piped the water in from the 
well. There are many ingenious ways in which one can arrange 
a simple shower bath for the farm. For further information 



Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 17 

write for The University of Texas Bulletin No. 305, on Clean- 
liness and Health. 

No, 9. The toilet is a very necessary consideration for the 
convenient home. The insanitary, unscreened toilet is often the 
means of distributing diseases, especially typhoid and dysen- 
tery; and the poorly kept toilet, placed at some distance from 
the home is often responsible, particularly with children, for 
the lack of regularity in attending to the calls of nature, which 
leads to chronic constipation and thus to many other ills. 

The flush toilet can easily and cheaply be installed in the 
home where there is already running water for the bath. How- 
ever, a septic tank, or closed cess-pool is essential for the care 
of the waste. When installed, such a system greatly reduces 
the labor of the housekeeper. 

Where the outside toilet must be used have a good, screened, 
sanitary, dry toilet. If emptied frequently, and ashes or lime 
is used daily in the vault, there is no reason why this toilet could 
not stand near, or in direct connection with the house. Such a 
toilet must be screened to exclude flies from the vault ; must 
provide a tight receptacle to hold all the waste matter and pre- 
vent it from polluting the soil; and must be so constructed as 
to be easily cleaned. These requirements are essential as the 
human waste may contain disease germs, especially the germs 
which cause typhoid, hookworm, dysentery, and intestinal tuber- 
culosis. If the flies are not excluded they breed in the privy 
filth and spread its diseases. Where the soil is allowed to be- 
come contaminated with the human waste, the disease germs may 
find their way into the drinking water, or the children or any 
barefooted person become infected with hookworm directly from 
the soil. The following cuts show the construction of the dry 
toilet as suggested by the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, Farmers' Bulletin No. 78. The lumber for this toilet 
costs from five to ten dollars, depending on the locality. Every 
family that does not have running water and a septic tank 
should order one of these bulletins and follow the directions 
given there for making a sanitary dry toilet. 



18 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



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Conveniences and Devices for the Farm Home 19 







TlO,3 -Jam LTAX-'xrlii^^irloLL.tT . 



THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 

Coeducational Tuition Free 

ANNUAL EXPENSES $180 AND UPWARDS 

MAIN UNIVERSITY AT AUSTIN 

COLLEGE OF ARTS: Courses leading to the Degrees of 

Bachelor and Master of Arts, Master of Journalism, and 

Doctor of Philosophy. 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: Professional courses for 

teachers, leading to elementary and permanent certificates. 
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT: Degree courses in civil, 

electrical, and mining engineering. 
LAW DEPARTMENT : Three-year course leading to Degree of 

Bachelor of Laws, with State license ; course leading to Degree 

of Master of Laws. 
SUMMER SCHOOL : Regular University and Normal courses ; 

seven weeks. Session of 1916 begins June 12. For catalogue, 

address 

THE REGISTRAR, 
University Station, Austin. 

DEPARTMENT OF EXTENSION: I. Di\dsion of Corre- 
spondence Instruction. II. Division of Public "Welfare. 
III. Division of Public Discussion. IV. Division of Home 
Welfare. V. Division of Public School Improvement. VI. 
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divisions, address 

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University Station, Austia. 

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three-year course in nursing. Thorough laboratory training. 
Exceptional clinical facilities in John Sealy Hospital. Univer- 
sity Hall, a dormitory for women students of medicine. 
For catalogue, address 

THE DEAN, Medical College, 

Galveston. 



REPORT OF SCHOOLHOUSE MEETING 

( Send this report, immediately after the meeting, to A. Caswell 
Ellis, Director of Extension, the University of Texas, Austin, 
Texas, and the programs and questions for the following meeting 
will be sent to you by return mail. Nothing further will be sent 
until the report is received.) 

1. Name of school, County 

2. Principal of School, 

3. Pqstoffice Address of Principal, 

4. Name of Chairman of Meeting, 

5. Postoffice Address of Chairman of Meeting, 

6. Name of Secretary of Meeting, 

7. Postoffice Address of Secretary of Meeting, 

8. Date of Meeting, 

9. Subject of Discussion, 

10. Number present : Women Men 

11. Probable number that will attend next meeting, 

12. Comments and Suggestions: (Was there much discus- 
sion ? Was the meetmg helpful ? Will any practical movement 
or organization come from it ? Do any wish to study the matter 
further? Can we help in any way?) 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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